Spoke Too Soon (and Too Much)

Why do women feel the need to bare it all on a first date?

By Liza Persky

Well, this day was a total waste of makeup.  There's almost nothing worse than looking really good and having nobody see you other than your mailman, who I'm pretty sure feels sorry for me every time he puts another envelope from "Speed Dating Spectacular" in my mailbox.

If only I looked this good last night, on my first date with Sam.  Today, everything's working in my favor.  My freshly washed jeans fit perfectly, my hair has low humidity curl, and my eye shadow looks like it was done by a professional. Today I feel pretty, as opposed to last night where I looked like a contestant on The Today Show's plaza ambush makeovers.

So, it's the day after, and I'm thinking back on the date and trying to discern why I feel anxious.  It can't just be that I didn't like the way I looked, which, as sad as it may sound, is some real personal growth -- so what is it?

We met at a bar in my neighborhood.  He walked in and he was ten times more attractive than he looked in his picture, which, for those who aren't familiar with the online dating world, pretty much happens as often as one of the couples on The Bachelor actually gets married.  Shoot, I just fell off the not-talking-about-The- Bachelor wagon. I was three days sober, too.  Damn.

Sam sat down and I was immediately was nervous.  Usually, on these dates, I feel pretty good.  So many women lie about their age, weight, and various other physical characteristics, but I'm pretty comfortable with the fact that I look like the picture they've seen on my profile.

We ordered drinks and he asked me where else I liked to go in the neighborhood, and I think that was pretty much the last thing he said for the rest of the night. It wasn't because he didn't have anything to offer - rather, I didn't really give him a chance to offer.  For some reason, my nerves turned me into the chattiest girl on the planet.  I told him pretty much all there is to know about me.  Everything, from the fact that I'm a twin, that I have a love of 80s television (which I think I followed up with a pitchy version of the Growing Pains theme song), that I went to a nudist colony as a kid and am still not over watching naked people playing tennis, that I'm giving serious consideration to bringing back the wine cooler, that I haven't painted my apartment for fifteen years, that I have a true love for those Jimmy Dean sausage ads with the guy playing the sun, and that I still own a Walkman.  

I don't know what came over me.  I wanted him to like me so much that I just kept going and going and going.  I'd just met the guy and here I was throwing everything about myself at a wall and hoping something would stick. It left me feeling very exposed, somewhat gross and a wee bit pathetic.  Then it dawned on me: I wanted to show him all the parts of me to feel some kind of connection.

Basically, I'd emotionally slept with him on the first date!  Why did I need to reveal so much of myself?   Where's the Sex and The City episode about THAT!  I can't be the only one who's experienced something like this.  Women spend all this time worrying about having sex on the first date and the guy not respecting us in the morning, and, truthfully, I'll take that any day over how I feel right now, which is me not respecting myself.  This is the kind of pain I don't even think a wine cooler can alleviate.